Professor Vivienne Lawack
Professor of Fintech Law and Regulation
Faculty of Law
Professor Vivienne Lawack is a Professor of Fintech Law and Regulation in the Department of Mercantile and Labour Law, Faculty of Law at the University of the Western Cape. She has established the Centre for African Fintech, Innovation and Law (CAFIL) at UWC in June 2025, where she was recently appointed as Director as of 1 October 2025. She is a distinguished legal scholar specialising in Fintech law and Regulation in Africa and holds a B. Juris (cum laude), LLB (cum laude) LLM (Nelson Mandela University), LLD (UNISA). She is also an admitted, non-practising advocate of the High Court of South Africa.
Prof Lawack served as Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Academic at UWC from 1 April 2015 until 31 December 2025, and was instrumental in setting up the Migration and Mobilities Interdisciplinary Collective (MMICA). Currently, she has established a special engaged research project in CAFIL on Technology, Migration and Mobilities, which provides a platform for the combination of technology, innovation and migration and mobilities.
Prof Lawack brings a distinctive combination of academic, policy, legal counsel and regulatory expertise. She spent her early career as an academic at Vista University in 1995 and then at the Faculty of Law at the then University of Port Elizabeth (now Nelson Mandela University) from 1 January 1996 until 30 June 2002. Thereafter, Prof Lawack spent several years at the South African Reserve Bank in various capacities from 1 July 2002 to 31 December 2006. On 1 January 2006 she joined Strate Limited as Senior Legal Counsel.
Prof Lawack has extensive academic leadership experience in senior roles in the higher education sector. She was the Executive Dean of the Faculty of Law at Nelson Mandela University from 1 July 2008 until 31 March 2015. She then served as Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Academic at UWC from 1 April 2015 until 31 December 2025. From 1 January 2025 she is a Professor in Fintech Law and Regulation in the Department of Mercantile and Labour Law, Faculty of Law at UWC.
Prof Lawack’s research focuses on fintech law and regulation in Africa, covering critical areas such as central bank digital currencies, cryptoassets, domestic and cross-border remittances, mobile money, financial inclusion, and financial integrity. She has published extensively, including the edited volume Fintech Law and Regulation: An African Perspective (Juta, 2023), which brought together contributions from her doctoral students and has been well received by both scholars and regulators.
Beyond academia, Prof Lawack is deeply engaged in bridging law, finance, and education. She serves on several boards and councils, including as a non-executive director of Cenfri, a member of the South African Judicial Education Institute Council, non-executive director on the Kepler Board and Deputy Chairperson of the of the Kepler College Council.